This Prayer Is For Your Pain.
I’ve been sick for the last two days. A vicious stomach bug has caught a hold of me and my time has mostly been spent house sitting my Mom’s place and regular visits between the bed and the bathroom. I’m feeling a bit better but not 100%. My guess was a bad smoked salmon sandwich, but I was told it could have been anything.
Yesterday I went to see my doctor, thankfully it’s nothing serious, plenty of rest, fluids, and all that jazz, should clear up in a couple of days. While I was out because I am taking care of some official documentation that I need, after the visit to my doctor’s office I decided to risk going to the ministry of transportation to update the address on my license. I figured if I needed a bathroom i was sure someone on the Danforth would let me use one. I remembered a Ministry office being on Danforth just south of Greenwood and when I got there saw that it was there no longer.
Since I was right in between Greenwood and Donlands station, I decided not to change direction and kept walking to Donlands, nature wasn’t calling but I was feeling week, and was looking forward to just hopping on the subway and heading home. I got to Donlands and heard a train coming, and rushed as much as I could, I noticed as I was going down the stairs to the platform, that I was heading down the wrong one, I needed to go east, and I was going down the west. I was half-way down the stairs when I turned around and climbed back up. I went down the stairs of the eastbound platform, and when I got there, there was a train stopped about 50 meters away from where it was supposed to, and the driver was at the end of the platform cutting the power to the track.
He turned around everyone, looked no one in the eye, and spoke quickly saying, “Go upstairs, there will be no subway service for at least an hour.” I was right near the front car of the train, and saw a young girl emerge from there, with a desperate and fearful look on her face. She said “It was a woman, I saw her, she jumped in front of the train.” Another girl, said “What?” and I said “This train here?” She didn’t answer either of us, and started shaking and crying. A second TTC official came downstairs, and in a loud voice said “Everybody upstairs please.” A young guy, walked to the front of the train and looked down at the tracks, but I didn’t share his curiosity, if there was anything there I didn’t want to see it. In fact I wanted to just get out of there immediately, but I was somewhat concerned for the girl that saw what happened. The other young girl offered her a cab ride home, I offered to buy her a bottle of water, but she wasn’t acknowledging anything. She was on the front car, and saw an older woman throw herself in front of the train.
I went upstairs with everyone else, and when I got to the surface, it became obvious that the girl was telling the truth. Hordes of police cars, fire trucks, and ambulance personnel were immediately on the scene, there were select TTC officials directing passengers to where to catch shuttle buses on the Danforth. Some people knew, that somebody jumped, others were in the dark, and wondered what was going on, but it soon got around that it was a suicide, and I found it rather disturbing that people were waiting around to see what would soon be brought to the ambulance.
As i was waiting for a shuttle bus heading east, I ran into a poet that I remembered from starting out in the beaches poetry scene way back when. He was on the train towards the back, and he was telling me how the train stopped abruptly, and how some passengers slumped over, and those that were standing lost their balance. Other people were talking too, some felt inconvenienced and some wondered why someone would do that. The poet friend of mine said “At that point they’re past councelling.” An older Greek guy passed the scene asking what has happening and he said he thought he knew who it might be, he said he saw a distraught older woman outside of the Seven Eleven.
I thought about the young girl that saw it happen, and how traumatized she was. I th0ught about how if I didn’t make the mistake of going down the stairs to the wrong platform, I likely would have seen it happen as well, and thank God I didn’t, it would have been something my stomach couldn’t have handled, and mentally I would have been right up there with that young girl as well.
I thought about the woman that jumped, and what kind of pain she was in to do something like that. To throw yourself in front of a train means you’re in a world of hurt, the kind of hurt most people can’t even begin to comprehend. I was told that things like this on the TTC happen frequently, but I still found it awkward that nothing was mentioned on the news about it. If it happens so frequently that it’s not worth reporting, that is pretty sad. I am sorry that she is in that long line of people, that were feeling that same hurt. I don’t pray as much as I like to, but when I do I make my prayers count. I say prayers for different things, for the existence of certain people in my life, for what I have, for strength that I need, and for people that have passed on. I’ll say a prayer for all of those things today, and an additional one, for that woman’s pain.
